WINDOW SAFETY AT HOSPITALS
Window restrictor provide safe ventilation and prevent accidents caused by falling from windows and doors at hospitals. Window safety is important at hospitals as psychological and mental condition of patients can cause accidents more than usual.
The incidence of fatal hospital falls is not high, but the
matter deserves notice from the standpoint both of
prevention and of the risk of litigation.
Falls are accident or often suicidal, from windows and roofs.
In six months in the West London Coroner's district
six such falls have occurred. The area includes 40 hospitals with roughly 13,800 beds. Postulating an 800/%
bed occupancy and an average length of stay of 20 days
per patient, this gives an annual population at risk of about 100,000. The risk of a fatal fall from a window is
therefore about 1 in 8,000. Not all the cases are overtly
suicidal, but it is of interest to compare this figure with
the current suicide rate of 1 in 10,000 in the general
population. The six falls occurring during the six
months under review seem to represent an unusually
high incidence. Against the-factor of closer supervision
must be set the nature of the hospital population, consisting as it does of sick people who may be temporarily
upset by pain, toxaemia, or biochemical disturbances, to
say nothing of psychological troubles. ( British Medical Journal FATAL HOSPITAL FALLS
GAVIN THURSTON, M.R.C.P., D.C.H.
Barrister-at-Law; H.M. Coroner, County of London
(Western District))
There were nearly 10 300 fatal fall injuries in 2000 and 2.6 million non-fatal fall injuries among US adults aged ≥65 years in 2000. Estimated direct medical costs for these injuries totaled $0.2 billion dollars for fatal and $19 billion dollars for non-fatal falls in US.
In 1999, ED and hospital care for fall related injuries among people aged ≥60 cost the United Kingdom almost £1 billion (US$1.9 billion). A Western Australia study estimated ED treated and hospitalized fall injuries among people aged ≥65 cost the Australian healthcare system $86.4 million (US$66.1 million). ( The costs of fatal and non-fatal falls among older adults
J A Stevens, P S Corso1, E A Finkelstein, T R Miller )
